“Whatever is that for?”
“Could be a root cellar,” he said.
She frowned and lifted a brow. “In the shed? That doesn’t seem likely.”
“Only one way to find out.” The door had a grip in it, and he reached down to yank it open.
Fetid air rushed out at him, and he couldn’t control his grimace. “Nasty down there. Got a flashlight?”
“Right here.” She retrieved it from the workbench and handed it to him. “Be careful. Those steps don’t seem very safe.”
He shone the light on them and saw where the treads were busted. “I’ll be careful.”
Watching where he put his feet, he descended into the dark hole. He had to duck once he reached the dirt floor since the floor joists were only about five feet above him. He swept the light around and recoiled.
In the corner were the bodies of two young women.
Chapter 16
Bailey backed away from the stench wafting from the open shed. Dead rats maybe? She shuddered and hugged herself, then went to sit on the porch step. Lance would clean it out. She exhaled the horrible odor from her lungs.
It was starting to get dark. There was a heavy, weary tread to his boots as he exited the shed and walked across the grass. He stopped and stared at her. “I’ll need to ask you some questions.”
She didn’t like his imperious tone. “About the repairs?”
“Let me make a call first.” He whipped out his phone and turned his back to her.
Though his tone was low, she caught the word bodies. He was calling someone about rats or raccoons? Maybe a biologist or something.
He ended the call and pinned her in place with a suspicious glare. “I need to know how you came to be here. What is your connection to this place?”
She stiffened and studied the steely expression in his eyes. “This sounds like an interrogation. What’s going on?”
He reached in his pocket and drew out a badge. “FBI agent. There are two bodies in that shed, Ms. Fleming.”
FBI. Her gaze lingered on the official badge, and she gripped her hands together. “B-Bodies? You mean people?”
“Two young women, probably about fifteen or sixteen.”
She fought a wave of nausea. “Oh no.” His eyes narrowed as he stared at her, and the reality of his badge finally sank in. “You lied to me? You’re not a neighbor at all.”
“That’s right. I’m working an organized-crime ring that includes sex trafficking. One of our satellite offices called me in Seattle to alert me to the activity they suspected was going on out of this cabin. You’ve got some serious questions to answer. What’s your connection to Baker Holdings company?”
She’d liked him, trusted him. Would she never learn? Her judgment about men was seriously skewed.
She glared at him. “I don’t want to talk to you. Leave me alone. This has nothing to do with me. And you lied to me. I hate liars!”
“Look, I can make this hard if you want me to. Answer my question or I’ll have to arrest you. What is your connection to Baker Holdings?”
Arrest her? She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of Baker Holdings.” She rose and clasped her hands together. His suspicious glare didn’t fade.
Lance took a step closer to her. “There are young women murdered in that shed. Doesn’t that matter to you? Families are grieving and longing to hear from their daughters, and you’re standing here refusing to answer simple questions. Do you know who they are?”
She forced herself to think of the girls lying dead in that building instead of her own outrage. “Look, Lance, there is some kind of mistake.” She exhaled. “This has nothing to do with me.” She looked away from the strong planes and angles of his handsome face. “I-I made a really stupid mistake. I found out the man I married six months ago already had a wife. I left him as soon as I found out, but he’s in the public eye. The press must have gotten wind of it, and a few reporters had called me. I didn’t intend to talk about it, but Kyle must have been afraid I would. He showed up at work and wanted to bribe me to keep me from talking to the press. He put this house in my name as compensation. I only saw the deed to it after my mother was murdered.”
His dark-blue eyes narrowed. “Murdered?”
She nodded. “Call Sheriff Kaleva in Rock Harbor, Michigan. He can tell you about it. He said her hands were tied behind her back and she was shot through the h-head.” She gulped and swallowed hard. “She left me a note telling me to hide because the killer would be coming after me. I didn’t believe it until someone shot at me too. So I ran. The only place I could think to come was to this house that I’d just found out was in my name.”
Saying it all out loud sounded ridiculous, like something from a movie. How could this be her life? She was a simple nurse, and the most exciting thing she’d done up to this point was to get married.
He stared at her for a long minute. “Don’t go anywhere. My partner has been playing phone tag with the sheriff. I’ll call him myself.”
“I’ve got his number.” She stepped inside the cabin long enough to retrieve her phone. “Here.”
She showed him the number and he put it in his phone, then walked away a few feet.
What was all this about? Nothing made sense. The FBI would need to talk to Kyle about this. He wouldn’t be happy about that, but she didn’t care. If only her mother were still alive. She might be able to shed some light on this.
Her gaze lingered on Lance’s broad back. His lies reinforced her belief that handsome men couldn’t be trusted. He could have told her the truth and asked his questions the moment he came to the door, but lying was more convenient. And she’d liked him.
Never again.
He ended the call and faced her. “The sheriff corroborated your story.”
“Of course he did. I don’t lie, unlike most men.” She curled her lip and turned to stomp up the steps to the cabin. “Leave me alone. I’ve told you everything I know.”
Before she reached the door, he came after her and took her arm. “You don’t know what you might know. There had to be some reason this Kyle put the house in your name. What do you know about your bogus husband?”
“Obviously not very much or I would have known he was already married. He’s a singer.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t believe it when he singled me out at a concert and sent a roadie to give me a backstage pass.”
“What did your mother think of him?”
“She didn’t like him at first, but he won her over too. He asked me to marry him two months after we met, and I was hesitant, but she urged me to follow my heart. So I did, and look where it got me.”
“Did Kyle ever see your mom alone?”
She stared at him as she thought about it. “Well, now that you mention it, he talked to her before he asked me to marry him. What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know yet, but with your mom’s murder, it would appear there might be some connection to organized crime. The sheriff said it looked like an execution. If Kyle had crime connections, maybe he ordered the hit on your mother. Any idea why?”
“He liked her. At least he said he did.” A wave of nausea swamped her, and she rushed up to the edge of the woods and leaned over. Her stomach emptied in a hot rush, and she sank to her knees in the soft loam.
If only she could go back a year in time.
Daniel should have called by now. As forensic techs and law enforcement agents descended onto the property, Lance pulled out his phone and called his partner.
Daniel answered on the first ring. “I was about to call you. It was a bust. There was a brothel, but it used older prostitutes. We arrested the pimp, and we’re processing the women now, but there’s no sign of Jackson. This isn’t his kind of operation either.”
Lance watched a tech duck into the shed. “You won’t believe what I found here.”
Daniel whistled as Lance ran through the discovery of the two bodies. “You talk to the Fleming woman any more? Get anything out of her?�
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“I asked to get into the shed, and she handed over the key without any objection. When I found the trapdoor, she didn’t try to stop me from opening it. I don’t think she had any idea what was down there.”
“Interesting. You get any other info out of her?”
“Yeah, her mother was murdered. That’s the shooting.” He told Daniel what he’d learned from Sheriff Kaleva. “Then someone shot at her, and she ran.”
“Wow. And this lowlife gave her the deed to the house? You have to wonder if that was all part of his plan. It’s pretty remote. Wait a second. I have the list of board members here. There’s a Kyle on the list. Kyle Boone.”
“I’ll talk to her a little more.” He ended the call and went to find Bailey.
She was in the kitchen with the cat on her lap. The feline was so big that her legs hung over the sides of Bailey’s lap. The cat followed him with her gaze and licked her chops.
“Your cat looks like I’m her next meal.”
Bailey rubbed the cat’s ears. “She’s very friendly and loving. What are they finding out there?”
“Nothing more just yet. They’re processing the scene and gathering evidence, but we won’t know much for several days. They’ll try to ID the bodies, get closure to the families. We might get lucky and find DNA we can identify.” Slim chance of that though. “Was Kyle Boone the sleazebag singer?”
She shook her head. “Kyle Bearcroft.”
“Maybe that’s not his real name.”
“Probably not. Nothing else about him was real.”
Lance went to the coffeepot and poured himself a cup. “You want some?”
“No thanks.”
Carrying his cup, he joined her at the minuscule table and sat in the other chair. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about your marriage to Kyle Bearcroft.”
She rubbed the cat’s ears. “You’re FBI. You can probably find out more about him than I’ll ever know.”
“Let’s retrace how this all happened, okay? Start at the beginning.”
“I was at a concert at Michigan Tech. He had one of his roadies send out a backstage pass. I was flattered, of course. I’d been a fan since I was a senior in high school.”
“He’s older than you?”
She nodded. “He’s about thirty. I’m twenty-four.”
“So then what happened?”
“He told me he’d spotted me right off and couldn’t take his eyes off me, then he asked to take me out as soon as he got changed. We went to a little bar restaurant in Houghton and talked until almost three in the morning. He had a break of two weeks between concerts, and we spent every evening together. He kept trying to get me to ditch work, but I wouldn’t do that.”
“You said your mom didn’t like him at first?”
She shook her head. “She about had a cow about the age difference, but Kyle said he’d talk to her. They spoke for about two hours, and when I got home from work, her attitude was different.” Bailey’s fingers stilled in the cat’s fur. “She seemed like she’d been crying though. I didn’t want to ask her about it because I was afraid she’d still be against him.” Her green eyes were luminous with tears. “If only I’d been smarter, wiser about all of it.”
“A rock star like that—I’m surprised he wanted to marry you if he was already married. Didn’t he know he’d be found out? And don’t guys like that have groupies and women at every concert?”
Pink rushed to her cheeks, and she didn’t look at him. “I, um, I was saving myself for marriage. I told him that the first time he put the moves on me. I’m a Christian, and I have really strong feelings about that.”
Well, well, well, what a rarity in this day and age. Lance kept his admiration to himself. “I see. So that’s when he proposed marriage?”
“He swore me to secrecy and said we’d get married by a justice of the peace. I couldn’t tell anyone because the media might get hold of it, and it would affect his popularity. I was okay with that. It seemed a sweet and secret romance.” She blew out a breath. “I can’t believe how stupid I was. I-I feel pretty worthless about now. And stupid.”
He touched her hand. “It wasn’t your fault, Bailey. It doesn’t mean you’re any less valuable either. You’re a beautiful woman, both inside and out. Any man would be proud to be with you.”
Her gaze shot up to collide with his. “It doesn’t feel that way.”
He cupped her face in his palm and relished the feel of her soft skin against his hand. “Feelings lie. What he did was awful, but don’t beat yourself up about it. You took him at his word.”
The moment between them stretched out until he either had to kiss her or drop his hand. He dropped his hand and cleared his throat. “How’d you find out it was all a ruse to get you into bed?”
She flinched, and the color washed out of her cheeks. “That’s all it was, wasn’t it? I kept trying to tell myself he loved me even after I found out the truth. But he didn’t. He never did.”
The cat jumped off her lap and came to sniff at his shoes. Apparently satisfied at his smell, she leaped onto his lap and purred. “This cat is something else.”
“Kyle gave her to me. I about died when I found out he paid sixteen thousand dollars for her, but she’s priceless to me.”
Sixteen thousand dollars. Holy moly. “How did you find out?”
“We’d been ‘married’”—she made air quotes—“for about a month. I overheard him talking to his real wife. He was soothing her about not making it home on his break and promised to come see her and the kids in a few weeks. He has two children.”
“That’s not been in the media?”
She shook her head. “No one knows his real name. He’s super private. Though you asked me if it was Boone.”
Lance had every intention of finding out the guy’s true identity. It would make sense that he was the man on the Baker Holdings’ board.
Chapter 17
Lance tossed his car keys onto the desk in the motel. Driving back and forth from Seattle would take too much time away from his investigation, so he and Daniel had decided to stay in Lavender Tides a few days. The place smelled of Lysol and air freshener, which was a lot better than the odor of decay. As soon as they had the search warrant, they’d head back to the Cedar Cabin property.
He sat on the edge of one of the beds and took out his phone, but Daniel exited the bathroom before he had a chance to place another call to the Rock Harbor sheriff.
“Good work today.” Daniel’s blond hair hung on his forehead in a damp mess from his shower. He padded barefoot to the bed and grabbed his socks. “Man, that was a nasty scene. Even with a shower, the smell is still in my nose.”
Lance planned to take a shower as well, but he had more pressing things to do. “We need to talk to Kyle Bearcroft. You find anything on him?”
“Nada. He’s well known in the rock world, but I don’t have anything beyond that.”
“What about his real wife?”
“She seems clean. A childhood sweetheart from Idaho. She still lives on the ranch where Kyle grew up. His real last name is Boone, by the way, just as we suspected.”
Lance grunted and took off his shoes. “Any friends we’ve heard about connected to him?”
“Nothing coming up in the databases.”
“Not much to go on. You locate Bearcroft’s current whereabouts?”
“He’s on tour and due to sing in Seattle this Friday. What did you make of the Fleming woman’s connection? You believe her story?”
“I’m not sure yet. Sheriff Kaleva spoke highly of her, but she’s only been in town a couple of years. She and her mom moved around a lot, which is suspicious in itself. I wish we could question her mother. I think there’s a lot there we don’t know.”
Bailey Fleming with her dark-purple hair and big green eyes intrigued him. She seemed to have a well of compassion for the elderly, but people weren’t always what they seemed. For all he knew, she was in this with Bearcroft up to her pretty neck.<
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“Your wheels are turning,” Daniel said.
“What if Bearcroft sent her here to handle something about to come down? She seems innocent enough, but we just don’t know much about her. Not yet. Any matches to the girls in the missing persons record?”
“Not yet. Prints will come back first, and we might get a hit while we’re waiting on DNA.”
“I want to go over that property with a fine-tooth comb. We got a warrant to extend our search yet?”
Daniel put his shoes on. “Just came down. A courier is on his way out here with it. Should have it in another thirty minutes. We can hit it hard as soon as it’s daylight.”
“We should talk to the neighbors, too, see if they’ve noticed any activity. That place is pretty remote. You’d think they’d see something.”
“There are ten acres surrounding the cabin, and it runs down to the water. The traffickers could easily access it by boat without being seen unless someone happened to be out in the woods.”
Lance nodded. “I’ll take a quick shower, then we can grab some dinner.”
His phone rang as he laid it on the desk, and he glanced at the screen to see his supervisor’s name. “Lance here.”
“Where are you and Daniel?”
“Still in Lavender Tides. We’re waiting on the search warrant. What’s up, Scott? We have an ID on the bodies yet?”
“Got a hit on one of the girls. Chloe Wilson. She ran away after a fight with her mom when she was fourteen. That was two years ago.”
Lance winced. At least the parents would have closure.
“There’s more,” Scott said. “Alfie Jackson is dead.”
Lance stilled, and the room did a slow spin. Jackson was his best lead to Ava. “What happened?” His throat was almost too tight to speak.
“Shot, execution style. Police think he was killed last night around midnight. Witnesses heard what sounded like a car backfiring around 12:10. Single shot to the head. We’re going through everything now. Maybe something will turn up to lead us to the rest of the ring. Let me know what you find in the search of the property.”
Secrets at Cedar Cabin Page 11
